Washington's God: Religion, Liberty, and the Father of Our Country - Hardcover

Novak, Michael; Novak, Jana

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 046505126X ISBN 13: 9780465051267

Publisher: Basic Books, 2006

Synopsis

Washington has long been viewed as the patron saint of secular government, but in Washington's God , Michael Novak and his daughter, Jana, reveal that it was Washington's strong faith in divine Providence that gave meaning and force to his monumental life. Narrowly escaping a British trap during the Battle of Brooklyn, Washington didn't credit his survival to courage or tactical expertise; he blamed himself for marching his men into certain doom and marveled at the Providence that delivered them. Throughout his career, Washington held fast to the conviction that America's liberty was dependent on our faithfulness to God's will and our trust in Providence. Washington's God , shows Washington not only as a man of resource, strength, and virtue, but also as a man with deeply held religious values. This new presentation of Washington-as a man whose religion guided his governance-will bring him into today's debates about the role of faith in government and will challenge everything we thought we knew about the inner life of the father of our country.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Novak, a former U.S. ambassador, has served under Democratic and Republican administrations. He is the author of Belief and Unbelief , The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism , and many other books. His essays and reviews have been published in the New York Times Magazine , National Review , and many others. He presently holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Novak lives with his family in Washington, D.C. Jana Novak is a writer and poet and is the co-author of Tell Me Why: A Father Answers His Daughter's Questions About God . She lives in Washington, D.C.

From Publishers Weekly:

Most modern historians have made three basic assumptions about the religious views of our nation's first president: he was a deist; he was only a marginal Christian who kept up appearances but had no depth of conviction; and he believed only in an impersonal force or destiny that he called "Providence." Michael Novak, the well-known conservative thinker and author of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, teams up with his daughter Jana to attempt to debunk all three of these notions about Washington's religious views. Written at the specific request of Mount Vernon and with the assistance of their archives, this book is carefully researched. It is most persuasive when the Novaks show that despite his natural reserve, a depth of religious feeling ran through Washington's public and private speeches and correspondence, disproving the portrait of a tepid, perfunctory Anglicanism. However, they don't succeed as well in disproving Washington's deist sensibility; the Novaks adopt the modern assumption that being a Christian and being a deist were mutually exclusive—a conclusion that few in the late 18th century would have shared. At times, the Novaks' starry-eyed admiration of the man pushes this book over the bounds of biography into hagiography. (Mar. 6)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 046505126X
• ISBN 13: 9780465051267
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320